What is the social web? Also called social media, these channels allow members to contribute, rank and share and often remix user-generated content.

The bottom line is that we need to learn how to play, extend skills and abilities, develop core skills and move outside the comfort zone with the assistance and encouragement of friends local and global. Can we afford to ignore these channels?

Welcome to the long tail writ online and via lo-fi, heritage media. This wiki guide should assist novices and veteran web users alike. Editors are welcome to clarify text, add examples and help translate key phrases in other languages.

Monitoring and evaluation: It makes sense to closely monitor direct mentions and official hashtags. Advanced users will want to monitor relevant hashtags and variations of the official hashtag. Then it's important to evaluate lessons learned - what works? What didn't?

Social Web Digital Literacy Quiz

Worksheet

Here is my decidedly low-fi worksheet on social web interactions: 'Are we on the same screen?' can be remixed with any mix of social web channels. The question is showing two parties on what channels communication can exist and encourages a mutual reflection of the degrees of interaction.

Objectives: The worksheet is intended to nurture digital literacy. For many good friends, colleagues and family members, the social web is an undecipherable language. At the very least the worksheet helps people identify the languages. Second, the worksheet focuses on developing quality interaction. This will only occur when both parties identify the possible channels and consider the options for engagement. Again, the language is tricky. What sense do we make of liking, favoriting, sharing, commenting, curating?

Suggestions: Feel free to download, print, remix this worksheet. Make it suit your purposes. You are welcome to embed or curate this worksheet on other websites. Comments are most welcome!

A growing number of travelers are looking for insider knowledge from places new to them AND they are seeking weeks to maintain contact with family and friends. Likewise locals are seeking new ways to call attention to potential visitors or clients AND they are figuring out how to connect with their own neighbors.

We like the way Martin Hatchuelcalls this the social web. It's not a medium or collection of social media. No longer is the communication one-way, megaphone in hand. The social landscape is now one-to-many-to-many-to-many. The world is a small place. Be nice.

And for anyone who is getting a bit anxious, don't. Just reflect on who are your friends and how they might wish to be able to communicate with you. Email is not dead, nor are postcards, phone calls or knocks on the door. Telephone directories, probably but that's another story ... The point that matters is that the wave of apps and screen-based computers has rewritten the playbook.

But it's really simple. The social web is like Soylent Green ... it's people. The social web animates collaboration on the Web and on the ground. If our objective is to contribute to mutually enriching experiences, what's not to like?

Effective use of the social web leads to customer engagement and local love. Use it right and you improve the odds of repeat business.

You never know what's going to click, or better phrased, what others will click. The social web works effectively via repetition and redundancy.

When things become digital, the cost of copying, distributing and storing go to near zero. The cost of production and maintenance have a cost. We have to think about how we will leverage these tools. We have a collective responsiblility to explain the changing landscape to policymakers and decision-makers.

Shameless Plug

It is time to develop the web presence and capabilities of small and medium-sized businesses which comprise the vast majority of travel and tourism enterprises. Ron's workshops are focused and provide a safe, friendly environment in which to join the conversation. One of our aims is to help those struggling to find a way to reach the audience that has strayed from traditional media. Don't start on the back foot.

Question: How do you suggest that someone improve their digital literacy skills without being condescending? Do people out of the loop -- the digitally illiterate -- want to be in the loop?

Testimonials

I found Ron's webinar increased my overall knowledge and understanding of social media, exposed me to new products and has given me ideas for better promoting our business and for assisting tourism industry clients.
- Jimmy Young

Our Reactions to Technology

Flipboard

Examples

September 2012 - In Mexico smartphones with Wi-Fi and access to apps cost 1,000 pesos (less than $100 USD). It's never been easier or less expensive to go online. I say this anticipating the information/communication/collaboration revolution. We will now be able to interact with people who live in rural areas without working telephone lines, with people for whom 'cellphones' were unnecessary and computers prohibitively expensive, with people who speak indigenous languages. What we need to build into our way of thinking/reporting/listening ... is how to pay attention to what these new voices coming online will be saying.

Deeper

The changes at hand are massive. We are flummoxed by a daily barrage of new words signifying must-have apps, even if we're not certain what an ap is. Twitter - in all its glory - sounds like the word 'treasure' said with a lisp. We are immersed in a world of digital natives and digital migrants, wikis and an expanding universe of crowdsourced content and open journalism. Call it a digital vortex or the promised land, what we make of it depends on what we do with it ... now.

I say, 'hurray!' We have a lot to learn, so why not embrace the new language? Let's not get tripped up by terms like 'sharing' or 'following' ... instead let's focus on the people we wish to connect with. We need to figure out how to speak 'their language' and how to teach them ours.

A word of advice - you might need to reframe the way you think about the Web. Stop thinking about the way you want it to be or focus on the way that it is. MInd you, this is a difficult challenge as it morphs every few months. What works today like a charm will likely be antiquated in 6-18 months. Go with the flow and ask others point blank and nerdily pointing to the 'social web' ask them what they'd like you to like and what they don't like and how they might like what you're doing. Feel free to replace the word 'like' with 'share' or 'follow' or anything else.

For digital migrants, you have to buget a certain amount of time on a regular basis and commit to making this time to make the most effective use of online communication. Look deep within yourself and find the reservoir of curiosity and willpower. For digital natives, be patient and consider the challenges of your elders growing up in an age without cellphones, digital cameras and text messaging. What comes around goes around and you'll ask the same patience of your grandkids!

I think it comes down to the fact that there so many bits of information that we are going to select for ourselves the bits and pieces needed to make an informed viewpoint. If travelers expect and get better travel tips about a place via Flickr and YouTube, they are not paying attention to the government pr fodder. Small businesses ignore Facebook and the rest at their own peril. You don't have to like all of this, but some of the social web's charms will be attractive. It's still about people and building relationships. The challenge is to stay focused on how one builds networks and circles of trust using these new-fangled gadgets and widgets.

Off topic but relevant to social web training, have a look at Clay Shirky's latest TED video

Ron: I love the part about cooperation without coordination. The existing web platforms can animate collaboration in ways we couldn't dream a decade ago.

Background

This wiki cites specific examples of how 21st century technologies are used to connect locals and visitors in the realm of tourism and conservation (aka the local travel movement, responsible tourism, ecotourism, slow travel and conscientious travel).

Travel pros - are your clients (or potential clients) looking for you on social web channels? Do you want to establish an effective communication strategy that weaves Web with your existing means of communication (newsletters, flyers, radio ads)? Let us assist in demystifying the new school of communication.

No need to be groping in the dark when learning how to make effective use of the social web. Take a deep breath and we are going to show you how to make it fun and delicious. Show some gumption and expand your web of allies!

Storytelling still rules though the media for communicating the message are now changing at a phenomenal rate. We focus here on creating meaningful engagement, sustainable practices and innovative work that brings together the digital natives and digital immigrants. This includes employing specific tools including Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Slideshare, Twitter and YouTube.

There is a great need for people in rural areas, particularly those just now (2010) gaining access to the Internet, to get coaching tips that develop skill sets and confidence in setting up a web presence and interacting with ... interactive media. Many tend to be shy and unable to understand what's happening and why its so valuable. This workshop focuses our attention on the voices that need to be heard and works with these people in a collaborative and fun manner.

Engage and upgrade your world! Learn how social web can help you towards:

True, suggestions #6-11 are all about Ron Mader and Planeta.com! That said, this work is a good model of how you can make the most of Web. I'll be happy to establish reciprocal links and join the conversation with you online, thereby driving more attention and traffic to your work. Remember that it's not just a matter of developing a set of skills, it's creating an open and generous attitude. Please give a think to posting some videos and presentations of your work!

Tip - If you don’t have the patience, time or skills to effectively use the social web, consider hiring someone.

Many Internets, many lives- How is the vision we have of our digital lives matching the reality? Two leading Internet scholars talk about the ways in which people are engaging with the digital world. (UneditedJames Tizard lecture)The thoughts of Douglas Rushkoff - Douglas Rushkoff writes extensively on technology and the digital revolution and his message is about remembering to maintain control in a world swamped with choice and information.

'Skyful of lies' - BBC Presenter Nik Gowing has carried out a study titled 'Skyful of Lies' and Black Swans in which he investigates how changes to technology is making institutions of power, from the media to government, more vulnerable.

Social murders the media release - More and more, sites like twitter and facebook are bypassing traditional communication methods like government press releases during natural disasters. Emergency Services are grappling with how both to use social media to provide information, and to tackle the inevitable false or misleading posts.

Recommended viewing

Remotely connected - Rural artists have typically found themselves trying to translate their experiences of living on the land to gate-keeping gallery owners in the major cities. But new informal networks of artists, brought together on the internet, are cutting out the middle man and staging their own shows and happenings.Michael Shirrefs investigates.

Hashtags

Topics to explore

Online reputation management - how to respond to someone trying to harm your reputation through the social web. Managing risks comparison to graffiti, paint over it immediately unlike graffiti, some of these comments are permanent

Toward a One-Room Schoolhouse

Players

Old School

New School

Academics

Government

Media

Conservation

Tourism

Recommendations

Be Aware of Where You Are on the Learning Curve
Collaborate
Simplify
Improvise

Website Optimisation

Wikipedia

Quotes

Community Management is a way of thinking. We need to quit this race for clicks, likes and illusions of engagement. Stop underestimating your audience and make it your mission to start conversations.
- Marcela Donatello, Somewhere

Any technology that threatens to do three things always invokes a moral anxiety. If it threatens to rearrange our relationships to time, our relationships to space and our relationships to other people. And as soon as a technology has that potential we immediately imagine nothing good will come of it. And it is usually followed by phrases like 'it will be the end of our society', 'it will be the death of our culture', 'have you seen what the young people are doing'. It's never good.
- Genevieve Bell, Many Internets, many lives (James Tizard lecture)

The rise of blogging after 2000, which changed the READ ONLY web into Read/Write. The rise of social after 2007, which changed the web into read/writer/share. The routine use of networked methods in journalism, as with finding sources over Twitter or Facebook. But we still haven't seen the networked beat emerge in full form yet, and that is why I continued to work on the problem. - Jay Rosen

We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the minestrone that our minds make of the two.
- Paola Antonelli, Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA

Businesses need to take advantage of the 20 different ways they can now get in touch with people and tailor the information to suit that technology whether it is email, RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter or Flicker.
- Philip Wolf, chief executive of PhoCusWright, Tourism 'needs to get tech savvy'

The age of social media is not just changing our personal lives, but is increasingly affecting how business is conducted. No longer satisfied with strictly top-down models that view employees as cogs in a system, businesses are quickly adapting to a new paradigm that emphasizes connection, collaboration and innovation.
- Soren Gordhamer, 5 New Paradigms for a Socially Engaged Company

Alone together: city life through a smartphone====
Smart phones, tablets and iPods shape our environment like the weather, influencing what we see and hear. They are changing our understanding of what it means to be ‘together’, and ‘alone’. Benjamin Ballexplores the many ways we live together in big cities.

Like! What a beautiful, engaging examination of the social web.

Please show us more examples of connecting physical and online communities. Sydney should be a great example as it hosts the World Parks Congress in November. As a remote participant, I'll be paying attention to the digital footprint and how the event connects participants and locals. May our smartphones make us wiser and connect us in surprising ways!